Hoist the Hostmanship Flag

Service is no longer good enough. Hostmanship has raised the level of how we approach work to a new level of caring, involvement, pride, profit, and engagement.Are you ready to engage in hostmanship or are you so complacent that you will be left behind?Hostmanship is the art of making people feel welcome. The concept is outlined in a short book by Jan Gunnarsson and Olle Blohm.

Hostmanship is a beautiful word – a word that embodies both “welcome” and “let me take care of you”. For us hostmanship is the art of creating hospitality. This art can be exercised towards everyone, regardless of your relationship. You may be dealing with a customer, a patient or a visitor, or even a colleague, a citizen or a partner. It makes no difference. In the world of Hostmanship, we see everyone as guests. And where there is a guest, there is also a host – a host that exercises Hostmanship. Therefore, Hostmanship is a way of approaching people. It expresses a wish to serve others by a serving leadership and an insight that all activities strive to serve others. And in that process we develop both our pride and profit.

There are six fundamentals to hostmanship:

Serving others

Perceiving the whole

Taking responsibility

Being caring

Searching knowledge

Practicing dialogue

Hostmanship goes beyond service. Here is how the Hostmanship website makes the difference:

Genuine Hostmanship is pride in practice. Hostmanship without pride is empty and cold. In contrast to service, Hostmanship is focused on practice, on people as hosts, on the cultures of businesses, and on the capacity of organizations to tie it all together. Being a host is much about having the courage to let loose your talents and express your personality – to be brave enough to serve every person as she is and to listen to the needs she expresses. Hostmanship also differs from service in that it’s not about treating others as you yourself want to be treated. Hostmanship is to treat a person as she wants to be treated.

Ed Brenager is currently writing a terrific overview series of blog posts on Hostmanship at Leading Questions.

Hostmanship is about the source of loyal customers. It is about the relationship that is established between a business and the people who benefit from that business. Hostmanship is about the kind of care that is exhibited. Hostmanship is about making people feel welcome.

I strongly encourage you to visit and read the blog series to see how hostmanship can be a part of your approach to work and others. Thank you Ed for helping to bring Hostmanship over the Atlantic from Europe to North America. Here are links to the first 3 posts by Ed:

Here is one final statement on a welcoming world from the Hostmanship website:

We yearn for a world where people feel expected and welcome. A world where children, friends, strangers, guests, customers, and coworkers dare to meet each other without thinking of religion, color, sex, or age. We believe that this is something fundamental for lasting and true success for us as persons, for our companies, our places, and finally for our common home, the Earth. ~ Hostmanship Development Group 2004

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David Zinger

Comments

Thank you, David, for linking to my series. I agree with you that service is no longer good enough. What makes the difference is when we make it personal in the right way. The Hostmanship book can be acquired from the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership in Indiana. It’s a book of stories taken from the hospitality industry, but not limited at all to just people who work there. It really is about the personal connection that we make with our guests. It is an important contribution to business ideas that make a difference.